Hello everyone, what a month June has been, with lots of exciting news to share this issue! Scam Awareness Fortnight and associated activity has kept us very busy - and brought in several new fabulous partnership supporters too. Read on to see what's been going on and please do share with us your scams prevention efforts where you are - we'd all love to hear about them!
Happy reading! Charlotte
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As you will know, the national Citizens Advice-led Scam Awareness campaign took place 14th - 27th June. We made great efforts to support the campaign throughout by sharing scams messages in a variety of different ways:
Scam awareness event at The Buttercross, Whittlesey.
- Six scam awareness drop-in events - one in Peterborough and one in each district of Cambridgeshire.
- 40 social media posts using the official campaign materials or encouraging people to attend our events or complete Friends Against Scams e-learning.
- Two radio interviews - one on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and one on Fenland Youth Radio.
The drop-in events proved popular in each case with local people coming along to talk about their scams concerns and going away with some top tips for tackling them. A common theme was telephone scams and in some cases we have been able to help victims with call blocking services to stop future nuisance and scam calls.
Our social media following increased throughout the campaign but please do continue to share (not just like) our posts on Facebook and Twitter to increase our reach.
A big thank you to everybody who helped secure venues for the drop-in events or helped out on the day. Your support is enormously valued and helped make the campaign the success that it was.
 CAPASP are proud to call Care Network one of our partners, committed to the partnership charter in our fight against scams.
Care Network are a registered charity established over 30 years ago as a response to the lack of support, at that time, for people after a hospital stay. The charity operates across the county of Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough.
Care Network operate a number of services, all of which put people at the heart of everything, helping them to stay healthy, independent and in touch with their community. These services provide information, guidance and practical support to help people to stay at home and connected with local life. Initially the main focus was supporting older people, but today support is provided to anyone over the age of 18 years.
Services are:
- Help at Home
- Community Information
- Community Development
- Healthy Fenland
The passion and commitment of the Care Network team, combined with an army of dedicated local volunteers, means that Care Network are truly embedded within communities across the county. You can find out more about Care Network and their services by visiting their website.
We would like to thank Care Network for their commitment to raising awareness of scams among their service users and for their recent support at our community engagement events.
A series of webinars have been organised throughout July for anyone who would like to know more about scams, the psychology behind scams, prevention and how a fraud case is investigated. The webinars, organised by national Neighbourhood Watch, are free to attend and bring together experts in the field relating to online fraud - a topic which we are all too familiar with and which can affect anyone as more and more of our lives are played out digitally.
Dates for the diary are:
14th July, 5.00pm - Insights into how a fraud case is investigated and how not to be the next victim. Ben Hobbs, Detective Sergeant and Catriona Still, Head of Fraud Prevention & Training, Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU).
23rd July, 5.00pm - Scams awareness training from the Friends Against Scams initiative. The National Trading Standards Scams Team (NTSST).
30th July, 5.00pm - Don't get hooked by scammers! What you need to know about flubot and phishing scams. Christopher Budd, Senior Global Threat Communications Manager, Avast.
To book your place visit www.ourwatch.org.uk/webinars There is no limit to the number of webinars you can attend.
 We've previously warned about undelivered parcel phishing (e-mail) and smishing (text) messages in our scam alerts and social media so we wanted to share the good news of some arrests for these despicable crimes.
In one case a man was arrested in a Manchester hotel after sending more than 25,000 smishing messages, purporting to be from courier company Hermes, in a single day. The 21 year old was found to be in possession of equipment used to send text messages on a large scale and had a total of 44,000 mobile phone contacts stored on the devices. Read Greater Manchester Police's press release about this here.
This follows the earlier arrest of eight people for sending messages claiming to be from Royal Mail and other parcel couriers. Read the story here.
Please remember that despite the recent arrests, scams of this kind may still be attempted so please spread the word to as many people as you can. #ShareandBeware. Let's all stay safe together.
Thank you.
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